


Second Chance

by ScarletteStar1



Category: Carol (2015), The Price of Salt - Patricia Highsmith
Genre: Christmas, F/F, Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:56:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28038789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarletteStar1/pseuds/ScarletteStar1
Summary: Carol lives an entire life the first time she sees Therese. . .
Relationships: Carol Aird/Therese Belivet
Comments: 21
Kudos: 58





	Second Chance

**Author's Note:**

> For D. . . my Bro. . . even when we didn't talk for three years, I still heard your voice and you were my Champion. You always spoke to me with kindness and encouragement.   
> I love you so much.

We don't know when out lives will be changed; when a star will come into our sky and distract us with its twinkle. I'd given up on stargazing, but then I went shopping. 

I saw her. That was that.

She wore a ridiculous cap, like a Santa cap, red, white, and fuzzy. Beneath it, her tiny face was pale as ice but for her lips which were full and red. I watched her open a box and talk to other customers, unaware of my presence. Why should she have been aware of me? Why should she have been aware my life had just been irrevocably altered?

I stepped in her direction. My footfalls were lost in the rustle of tissue paper and chatter of the crowd. This ambient camouflage emboldened me to take more steps. I approached her, got close enough so I could appreciate the dark fringe of hair curling against her jawline, and the small pearl earrings nestled in her earlobes. I imagined she smelled of honey and cinnamon and rose and cloves. I imagined she was warm as cake fresh from an oven.

Our eyes met, and though her lashes fluttered, she did not look away. Dazed, I asked about dolls. She no longer had the doll in stock that I so desired for Rindy. I cursed myself for waiting so long. I made her pull out a bunch of other childish paraphernalia, asked her opinion on cases and clothes, just to prolong the encounter, just to hear her voice, which surprised me by being deeper and more assertive than I’d imagined it would be.

She had a demeanor that was almost angelic. No, maybe not angelic precisely. More like something out of a fairy tale, a little elf or a changeling, something small enough she could be cradled in the blossom of a lily, a miniscule creature left behind to fend for herself. A foundling raised by woodland pixies. _A second chance. My second chance._

The thought captured me and clenched my throat in a most dramatic manner. I reached into my bag for a cigarette and made to light it.

“You can’t smoke in here,” she said softly, as if only for my ears. I mumbled an apology, but truthfully, I wasn’t sorry. I would have taken out a dozen cigarettes just to hear her voice tell me I couldn’t smoke them then and there. I suddenly longed to hear her tell me all the rules I should follow, and decided I would push against them, test her limits to see how far I could get until I heard her voice again chide me for whatever infraction.

I settled instead to ask her repeatedly about my order. Stupid questions about when and how it would arrive. I asked until I could see I made her uncomfortable, which was not my intent. Then I stopped asking and knew I needed to go.

But before taking my leave, I caught her eyes again, lingered only for a moment, but in that moment. . . oh in that moment. In that moment we grew old together, f _ast before anyone could stop us_. We lived a whole life before she could even blink and died at the very same instant in one another’s arms.

In that moment, we traveled to Paris and went all the way up the Eiffel Tower. She was scared of heights, and I kept my arm around her slender waist to steady her. At the very top, a wind blew up and she almost lost her hat, but I caught it and pressed it back down on her head with both of my hands, and in that silky, surprising voice she said, “My heroine.”

In that moment we made a garden in the back of my house. Each day we got up and took coffee next to tall sunflowers that provided a trellis for violet morning glories to climb. “What a lovely idea you had, Darling,” I told her and our fingers twisted around each other like vines. We sat in whitewashed, iron chairs and exchanged all our stories until hers became mine, and mine hers and we could no longer tell them apart. We watched as a summer storm blew in over the sky, and ran laughing into the house as the rain began. We fell into one another’s arms in the hallway where we kept all the coats and umbrellas, rocked against one another until we could no longer stand.

"Do you feel me," I gasped, pulsating around her fingers. 

"Oh I feel you entirely," she declared and kissed me deeply. 

In that moment, we ordered groceries for holiday meals and everyday teas. Prime rib and biscuits and sweet potatoes and chicken we would fry up, inexpertly late at night. Long carrots with the greens still attached. Translucent scallops wrapped in waxed paper, scented with the faint memory of the sea.

In that moment there were dozens of embraces, tentative and shy at first and gradually they grew bigger and bolder while we whispered against each other’s mouths in the middle of the night.

In that moment we caught one another’s eyes across book stores and smiled, then later surprised one another with packages wrapped in paper and tied up with red ribbon. “Oh, I love ribbon,” she said and curled it up in her fist and stroked it against her cheek.

In that moment, we fought bitterly, slammed doors, and threw bone china cups that shattered against the wall, stained the beige striped paper a deeper shade. But then came tearful apologies, quivering fingers clutching at damp cheeks, hot lips pressing tight and begging forgiveness only we could give, and eagerly did.

In that moment, she brought me a cloth for my eyes when I had a headache and stroked the inside of my arm.

In that moment, we travelled to Vermont and I taught her how to ski. When she twisted her ankle, I brought her ice. She sat in a chair in our hotel room, before dinner, in just her slip. The strap slipped down her shoulder and I replaced it with a single finger and then kissed the top of her head.

In that moment we went to the pictures and held hands under my coat, our knees and shoulders pressed firmly against each other. So intent on touching one another, we did not even snack. 

In that moment, I nursed her through a terrible chest cold in which she lay feverish and frightened me with how weak she’d become until I insisted on ringing the doctor who advised us to travel south, which we did. We stayed in a cabin near the ocean and I squashed a spider with my shoe. She found a monkey in a local town and squealed with delight as its fist tangled in her hair which had grown golden streaked with sun. I mixed us gin and tonics and called her my angel, my devil, my sweetest girl. She rolled her eyes and led me back to the bedroom. She grew healthy and we returned home. As I stood at the sink one night finishing some dishes, she came up behind me, wrapped her arms around my waist and pressed her cheek in between my shoulder blades. “You know I love you?” She asked so quietly, as though she’d not told me every single day since we met.

Since we met, at that very moment in that crowded department store, her wearing that goofy hat and smiling up at me in a most conciliatory manner meant no doubt to sell things.

“It’ll come on time?” I asked, possibly for the third time.

“Of course,” she answered with a little pulse of her lips.

It had been a long time since I’d believed in a God or heaven or hell. But as I stood there, I begged whatever power moved the planets to give me this, this second chance.

And I promised I would do right by it.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Holidays beautiful friends.... I originally posted this story several years ago as part of my longer work, No Other Love... I made a few judicious edits, but decided to post it as my holiday offering to you this year. To this day, simple as it is, it remains one of my favorite things I've ever written because when I wrote it, I did so with my entire heart and soul and felt every word as if it came out of my veins, and wrote it in blood. 
> 
> This fandom is always where my heart finds its home. You are my first love, my happy place, my North Star and my wonderful friends. I may go dark for a long time, but please never doubt the effect you've all had on my heart and soul. I love you truly.  
> If you feel like leaving a greeting in the comments, I'd be ever so happy to hear from you. xoxox.


End file.
